I had the privilege today of attending the Budget 2011 Stakeholders Lock-up. Here are the parts of the budget that relate to registered charities and other qualified donees. Also below are some of the highlights of the budget.

On March 29, 2012 Finance Minister Jim Flaherty released the Federal Budget at approximately 4PM. There are about 10 pages of information dealing with charities in the almost 500 page document. Here are the pieces of the 2012 Canadian Federal Budget that affect the Canadian charitable sector.

On March 21, 2013 at 4pm, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivered the 2013 Canadian federal budget. There were a number of interesting proposals relating to charities. Some of the highlights include a new temporary First-Time Donor’s Super Credit (FDSC) designed to encourage new donors to give to charity. “The FDSC will increase the value of the federal Charitable Donations Tax Credit by 25 percentage points if neither the taxpayer nor their spouse has claimed the credit since 2007” Flaherty has ignored many suggestions for increased tax incentives that would have been expensive and disproportionately benefitted the rich such as the elimination of capital gains on donations of land or private shares.

Today Finance Minister Jim Flaherty introduced the Canadian Federal Budget 2014. The budget had a large number of provisions dealing with non-profits and charities. Here are some excerpts from the Federal Budget in one PDF document. Overall I was very pleased with the provisions of the budget dealing with charities.

This article discusses certain ‘charitable’ gifting schemes which threaten to undermine the public and regulators confidence in the charitable sector. This article also discusses a plan to deal with this problem.

Here is a copy of a presentation I recently delivered on promoting bequests to charities. As charities seek to diversify or increase revenue, bequests become an even more important potential source. It covers some of the advantages and disadvantages with using bequests, whether an organization should create a bequest program, 16 steps to setting up a planned giving program that emphasizes bequests, as well as legal, ethical, and practical issues to keep in mind.

Here is the Blumbergs' List of Canada Corporations Act non-profits that need to continue to the CNCA. The federal government as part of its Open Data initiative provides a complete list of Federal corporations (for-profit and non-profit) in XML format. We thought it might be helpful to look at which Canadian non-profits corporations are still under the old Canada Corporations Act (CCA) and may need to continue under the Canada Not-for profit Corporations Act (CNCA).

We have just released the Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Canadian Charity Sector 2012. The Canadian charity sector has grown again. The Canadian charity sector is a vital part of Canadian society and economy with revenue of over $223 billion and expenditures of about $218 billion. In order to prepare this Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Canadian Charity Sector 2012 we reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2012 from the Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency. The database covers about 85,000 of the 86,000 registered charities in Canada that had filed their T3010 and were processed into CRA’s Charity Listing database by April 2014.

We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2011 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project. We provided an overview of the whole charity sector in the Blumbergs’ Charity Sector Snapshot 2011. We have taken a subset of the 2011 T3010 data to look at only registered charities based in Ontario. This article provides a snapshot of the registered charity sector in Ontario based on the 2011 T3010 filings. Here is a PDF of the Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Ontario Charity Sector 2011.

The new Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (CNCA) came into force October 17, 2011. Federal non-profits have until October 17, 2014 to continue under the new act of face possible dissolution. Industry Canada has placed hundreds of pages of information on the new act on their website in over 70 different documents. We have tried to accumulate the information in one PDF document which is now over 500 pages. For up to date information check the Industry Canada website. We have also included for registered charities information from the Charities Directorate of CRA. This document may be helpful because it is easier to save a PDF to your computer or laptop especially if you will not have internet connectivity. Furthermore, one can word search (usually Control F) for words through the document. This document is not comprehensive and in the future we may update it.

This article provides information and suggestions as to how a Canadian charity should, and should not, deal with CRA audits. It also discusses possible CRA responses and the likelihood of each response.

If you are being audited by the Charities Directorate of CRA you may find my article useful.

Here is a copy of my presentation on the legal requirements for Canadian charities operating abroad. The presentation discussed CRA positions and documents, case law, and various other legal, practical and ethical issues that a Canadian charity may face.

Canadian Charities and Foreign Activities -This article published in The Philanthropist describes the permissible structured relationships and agreements, review a number of cases dealing with Canadian charities operating abroad, and highlight some of the challenges facing Canadian charities that have foreign activities.

This 29 page article will attempt to assist Canadian charities who are conducting or interested in conducting programs outside of Canada with some of the legal issues that they may face. It will discuss the statutory and regulatory framework for Canadian charities operating abroad, describe the permissible structured relationships and agreements; review a number of cases dealing with Canadian charities operating abroad and highlight some challenges facing Canadian charities that have foreign activities. Canadian charities need to be aware of the rules that govern their foreign activities, some of which are contained in RC4106 (Registered Charities: Operating Outside Canada), in order to comply with Canada Revenue Agency requirements and to avoid deregistration, intermediate sanctions, negative publicity etc.

Charities, by virtue of their reputation and access to resources, in some cases make a tempting target for terrorists who are trying to acquire funds and/or legitimacy. Canadian charities need to be diligent in ensuring that their resources are used appropriately and not diverted to non-charitable uses, including terrorism. This article provides some basic guidance as to steps a Canadian charity can take to avoid having their resources misappropriated for terrorism or other inappropriate uses such as fraud.

In this presentation I provide an overview of issues for Canadian charities operating abroad especially Jewish charities interested in operating in Israel, the US and the rest of the world. I specifically discuss certain issues with respect to Israel and I also provide a list of all Canadian charities that identify themselves as operating in Israel or the Middle East. The presentation also includes a list of “Jewish/Israeli” charities that operate outside of Canada ordered by the amount of the contributions over that they spend outside of Canada.

In this article I discuss how Canadian charities can work with other Canadian or International Organizations that are not registered Canadian charities as long as they maintain direction and control of the Canadian resources.